The Right to Bleed
by Failure to Excommunicate
Summary: Post PS4 Game: A year after the terrorist attacks in New York, Peter and Miles are a well oiled machine of mentor and student... When bombings in New York begin to become frequent again, Peter is forced to face his greatest fears and dirty his hands as he fights to keep everyone he cares about safe from the villains that plague his life... and the Demons the plague his mind.


Chapter One: Something Just Like This

Life had a funny way of playing out in the worst possible scenarios for people. Some people seemed favored by Lady Luck while others suffered under her wrath for crimes they had not committed. For crimes they would never commit, or for crimes committed by the people before them. To those people, life could either be the world's greatest tragedy… or the greatest comedy. And Peter Parker chose to make it as funny as physically possible, because if he didn't, he felt like he'd fall apart at the seams.

It was the simple things in life that made it all worthwhile. Spending time with MJ, almost burning down her kitchen, the feel of wind rushing past him as he swings through the high rises of New York; mentoring Miles…

He paused at the edge of a building, perching like a gargoyle to stare out of the city, a wide smile on his face. For eight years, he hadn't been able to share this feeling with anyone. He could try to explain it to MJ, but words hardly did it any justice. He took a deep breath through his mask and hardly flinched as another person landed beside him. He was far less graceful than Peter's own landing, but he knew that in time, Miles would get the hang of this.

Peter reached up and took off his mask. They were high enough that no one would see him without it. "Beautiful, isn't it?" he asked, turning to Miles beside him. His suit was black with red spider webs. Peter had wanted to give him something that made him stand out. Of course, the city didn't exactly like having two spider people running around, but they would get over it. They would get used to the fact that Miles, or Kid Arachnid, was there and, hopefully, in time they would be okay with it.

"Incredible," Miles agreed. He too took off his mask and breathed deeply in. "What are we going to do today, mentor?"

Peter laughed. Miles was a kidder. Peter had, he supposed, wanted to pass on the mantel eventually, but taking on Miles as an apprentice had been an unplanned development... but one he was honored to carry out. "Nothing. There's not much going on today, honestly. I figured we just get some more web swinging practice in before I send you home for the night."

As if speaking out about having nothing to do had brought it about, the sound of police sirens wafted from the streets. Miles didn't even have time to protest his "curfew."

"Oh, god… Of course." Peter snapped, irritated. Could the city stay safe for five minutes? He pulled the mask down and turned to Miles. "Give me a few hours. Just… practice swinging, alright?"

Miles stood beside him, pulling the mask back over his face. ""Why can't I come?"

"Because I said so. You aren't ready."

He waved his hand, motioning to the ground. "It's a thug, man. I can handle this."

"We're not having this argument," Peter said with a sigh, "not today, Miles. I'll see you in a couple hours." He didn't wait for Miles to give him more grief before he jumped off of the building. "Yuri, talk to me," he said as he swung through the streets.

"Your basic drug deal."

"In broad daylight?" he asked. "That's unusual…"

"There's still no-man's lands from Doc Oct's and Li's attacks," Yuri said. "Certain gangs are still trying to fill the void left by Fisk and the territory left by the demons."

"Didn't need a lesson in criminology," Peter said. "Just commenting on why it's unusual."

"And I told you why it's not unusual. If you didn't want a lesson, then don't make stupid comments," Yuri snapped.

"Geez… Sorry… someone is in a bad mood," he muttered under his breath. "But don't worry…" He dropped his voice into a gravely growl. "Spider-cop is on the job!"

Yuri sighed on the other end, but he heard the humor in her voice. It had taken him a while to bounce back from the events that conspired a year ago, and he still wasn't 100%, but Yuri had done everything in her power to help him through whatever he was feeling. Peter was eternally grateful for the woman's support and patience with him.

He landed on top of a tower overlooking the docks where the deal was going down. "Where do you want me?" he asked Yuri.

"Just survalliance right now," she answered. "Just keep your head down and try not to get into trouble. You don't have that kid with you, do you?"

"Spider-man 2.0? No, I left him in the nest."

"You two have a nest?" He heard the mild disgust in her voice and he stifled a laugh. She was probably imagining a room covered in spider webs with beds made out of the nest.

"Sure do." He put his hand to his mask to turn on a scanner. "There's about thirty guys here… And there's a truck coming." he whispered to Yuri. "Are you sure this is a drug deal? Seems too big for one." Yuri didn't answer him and he kept his mouth shut for the moment. There seemed to be two factions coming together. A man stepped out of an armored truck to meet another man standing on the dock. The man from the truck was wearing a black suit and tie while the man on the dock was wearing nondescript street clothes. The two men stood shoulder to shoulder, looking across the bay towards Jersey. "I'm getting closer…" he whispered. Yuri again didn't answer him and he wasn't sure if he should start getting worried about that, but he didn't have time.

Without waiting for her go ahead, he shot web and perched on a street lamp above the two men. The others were working with whatever was in the armored truck.

"You have everything?" the suited man asked.

"Only if you do," his partner responded.

"It's in the truck." Neither one seemed to notice that he was there as a large suitcase was passed between the suited man and the man in street clothes. Peter bit his lip. He didn't know how much money was in that case, but unless the case was full of fifties or less, it was more than one armored truck worth of guns or even drugs. He turned to the truck as a man hurried from it to his boss, whispering something in a language that Peter didn't recognize. The man in street clothes nodded slowly and passed off the rolling suitcase to the man in the suit.

Peter kept his head down as he jumped from the lamppost to the top of the truck, landing as lightly as he could. He crept slowly towards the open end of the truck, peeking inside. At first, he was surprised to see that the truck was basically empty, save for several wires all connected to a dormant device that was bolted down and secured in the center of the truck. It was small for the amount of money that was being exchanged for it; no bigger than an average gaming CPU.

He very carefully pulled out a small camera and snapped a picture of the device. Just as the camera snapped, he felt eyes on him. "It's Spider-man!" a man shouted.

"Crap…" Peter snapped. He jumped off of the truck. "Hey, guys, I didn't—." His quip was cut off by gunfire. He leapt into the air to avoid the bullets, landing lightly on the ground before taking to the top of the truck. "Come on, guys! You could at least let me get the joke out!" He stood on top of the truck, but no one went to fire their weapon. "What's wrong?"

One of them shouted in that language again and everyone trained their guns on him, but still no one shot. Peter looked down at the truck and realized that whatever that CPU looking device was, it couldn't be damaged. "Oh, so you won't mind if I take it, will you?" he asked.

It was then that the police pulled into the square and all hell broke loose. Peter cursed under his breath. Bullets were flying towards the police. He thought he was supposed to be doing this silently, not cause a fire storm. "Yuri," he hissed. "Why didn't you stop them?"

"I tried," Yuri answered. Despite the storm rising on the dock, he stifled a sigh of relief. At least he didn't have to worry about her at that moment. "What is it?"

He swung down into the fray to start taking down the gang. "I dunno. A bomb, maybe? Something that they can't fire at." He flinched as he threw a man down onto the ground when he heard the large door of the armored truck slam down to shut it. Peter cursed and shot webs at the tires to try and prevent the truck from getting off of that dock. As he did that, one of the gang members swung a bat at his head. He ducked out of the way and entered into the fray.

"Leave it to the police, Spider-man. We can't let that truck get away." an officer shouted.

He spun to see that his webs didn't hold and the man in street clothes was beginning to drive away with the device. "Damn it. You sure?"

"They've got this," Yuri assured him. Peter spun away from the attack and ran after the armored truck. The driver hit the pavement and took off like a maniac.

"He's going to kill someone driving like that! He's heading towards Time Square."

"I'll get a blockade. Think you can stop it?"

Peter shook his head, though he knew she couldn't see him. Usually stopping an armored truck would be easy, but the fact that no one had even attempted to fire at him while he had been standing on the truck was enough to keep him from attempting to just crash the car. Instead, he took to the air and landed firmly onto the truck before running to the front of it and jumping inside.

"Hey," he said to the driver. "Might want to pull over." The answer to his request came in a hail of bullets. Peter gasped and dropped to the floor of the car. "I'm… not… asking!" he shouted over the rain of gunfire.

"Get out of here, Spider-man!" the driver shouted. His accent was heavy and Peter again couldn't quite place it.

"Yeah, big thing in the back of a truck. I'll just leave you to that, then!" He jumped into the passenger seat and webbed the man's hands to the steering wheel. Now that he didn't have to worry about gun fire, he leapt into the man's lap and hit the brake after kicked the driver's foot off of the gas pedal. "You wanna tell me who you're working for? Or what's in the truck?"

The man shouted again in his native language.

"I'll take that as a no." The truck came to a safe stop on the side of the road. Again, the driver could have crashed the car, but did nothing that would have damaged the thing in the back. Peter sat in the seat once they had stopped and looked at the man. "So… how do you want to do this?" Before he could say anything else, his senses tingled. He went to web the man again, but the bullet came from outside. The driver slumped over the wheel and blood and brains splattered the windshield. He spun to see the assassin on a building across the way.

Without giving himself time to think, he jumped out of the truck. "Hey, get that thing secure!" he shouted to the officers that were arriving on the scene. Whatever it was, he didn't want it getting into the wrong hands. He grabbed a web and hurled himself up on the building. Once on top, the man was gone. Peter cursed but before he jumped off, he noticed a black and white oni mask lying on the ground. He stepped towards it as a sense of dread filled his stomach. "Li…?" he whispered.

He was afraid to touch the mask. It was stupid to even think that these things had any sort of power, but he felt something like bad luck coming from the mask. As he stepped towards it, the feeling of dread turning into a feeling of caution. At first, he thought the mask was sending him bad vibes, until he realized that it was his sense tingling. A gun cocked and before he could jump out of the way, the man shouted and was thrown back, replaced by a black and red costumed boy. "Saved your life!"

Peter stared at Miles for a moment, not comprehending what had happened. "I… I told you to stay out of this!" Peter snapped.

"Is that the way you thank me for saving your life?" Miles returned.

"This isn't a joke, Arachnid," Peter said, though he was well aware of how hypocritical that was for him to say. He treated most of these outings as a joke... until someone got hurt. "Get out of here."

Miles threw his hands up in exasperation, but Peter wasn't backing down. There was a reason he didn't want Miles involved in this. Miles went to leap from the building, but Peter grabbed his shoulders. "I thought you wanted me to leave, Spidey."

Peter looked down at the boy before him. He hadn't wanted to mentor anyone... especially not so close to losing May, Dr. Octavious and Li. He hadn't wanted to bring anyone else into this world just yet, but what was he supposed to do? Miles would have gone out without him eventually and that would have been disastrous. When he started, there weren't criminals out there hunting spider people. Now he had sworn enemies who would take their shots at him and his spunky sidekick, even if Kid Arachnid wasn't actually his sidekick.

"Kid... I just dont want you to get hurt," he said. He felt Miles' muscles tighten in his shoulder half a second before his own senses went off like a flare. Before he could react, he was being shoved away from Miles towards the edge of the building just as a single gunshot rang out.

Peter's eyes widened as Miles stumbled towards the edge of the building and then slipped and fell. For a moment, all Peter could do was watch the boy he had sworn to protect and train plummet to the ground in a free fall. Peter broke out of the trance and lunged down after Miles, ignoring the fact that the assassin was most likely using the opportunity to flee.

Peter grabbed Miles with one hand and he used his other hand to shoot web and propel them to the ground. They crashed hard on the ground as he dialed Yuri's number. He got Miles onto the ground, tearing off his suit and putting pressure on the wound. "Yuri!" He shouted the moment she picked up. "I need an ambulance! I'm sending you my location."

"Is it you?" Yuri asked, and he could hear the fear in her voice when she asked that. There had been a time or two when he had needed an ambulance from Yuri. Surely those times were running through her head with the desperation in his voice.

"No, civillian," he said, staring down at Miles and trying to keep his voice from shaking too badly. Yuri was smart and she'd figure out the connectiong between this civilian and his new sidekick. "Gun shot in the stomach. Please... tell them to hurry!" He quickly discarded Miles' suit and kept his hand on the wound, praying for the ambulance to hurry.

"How bad is it?" Yuri asked, anything to fill the silence between them.

"Its fine..." Peter said through a lump in his throat before hanging up. His stomach twisted in knots. He couldn't be the reason this kid's mother lost her entire family. He looked up at the rooftop where the assassin had been. Now that things had settled some, Peter wished he had apprehended the man, but that wasn't as important as making sure Miles didn't bleed out.

As he stared blankly down at his bloodied hands, his phone rang. "Hey, Pete." He bit his lip as MJ's voice filled his ears. She sounded so happy... so carefree. It was almost surreal to have a boy bleeding in front of him and MJ's voice speaking happily to him on the other side. "How's it swinging?"

"I messed up," Peter said. His voice cracked and he cut off the explanation. "I screwed it up! I shouldn't have brought him into this damned mess! I should have..." he broke off, trying to keep his voice from going completely off.

"What happened?" Her voice was now laced with fear and worry. "Are you okay?"

He shook his head. No, he wasn't okay. This was not okay. None of this was supposed to happen. "Its Miles... can you please meet us at the hospital?"

"S-sure... I'm at F.E.A.S.T. Do you want me to bring his mother?"

Peter's stomach twisted into knots and he wanted to say no, but he knew she had the right to know. He didn't want to face her; either as Peter Parker or Spider-Man. Spider-Man, who had failed to keep her husband safe and Parker, who had only made things worse in the long run. "Yeah... tell her it's a gunshot wound and I'll see you there." He hung up before MJ could offer any sort of condolences for the situation. What could she say to make it better? What could anyone say? He had screwed this whole mentor thing up.

He looked down at the bleeding kid on the ground and closed his eyes as the sirens rang in the distance. "I told you to stay out of this..." he choked. "Why didn't you just listen?"


End file.
